"Allez!" barked the referee, dropping his blade and jumping back. Instantly Athos de Lilly came at him with a hop, skip, and lunge. Nash did not try to control his blade; the Chevalier de Nêche's reflexes took care of that: tzing, tzing! After an instant of parry, riposte, and remise—the blades were heavier and slower than Nash had expected— de Lilly jumped back.
There were voices behind Nash, but if he turned his head this man would stick him. The seconds stepped briskly forward and knocked up the duelists' swords with their own."Quickly!" said a voice."Posez!"
Men were shouldering out of the club, not in the crossed surcoats of Cardinal Richelieu's guards, but in the scarlet tunics of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Their revolvers were out.
"We were just witnessing a fencing exhibition—" said the referee with a feeble smile.
"Oh, yeah?" growled a policeman."We seen what we seen. You're under arrest, you two, for dueling. Come along. You too, Mr. Umpire."
The three prisoners were disarmed and loaded into a horse-drawn paddy-wagon.
Nash made a tentative effort to soften up his recent antagonist: "M'sieu, I'm sorry about your friend, but I've just had a lapse of memory, so you shouldn't hold me responsible—"
De Lilly glared scornfully and turned his head away, and the rest of the trip was made in morose silence.
When the desk sergeant asked Nash his name, he answered promptly: "Jean-Prospère de Nêche."
"Age?"
"Twenty-five."
"Mm, a man of your type doesn't usually last that long. Where were you created?"
"Created?"
"Yes, created."
"I don't know."
The sergeant was incredulous. Nash repeated his now wearing yarn about a lapse of memory, which did not seem to cut much ice either.
"Lock him up," said the sergeant."Justinian Marshal O'Hara can examine him."
"When?" asked Nash.
"Judging by the length of his docket, in about six months."
"But—hey!"
"Will you come quietly," said a firm redcoat, "or must we... that's better!"
"Avast, Frenchy, what are you in for?" Nash's cell mate heaved himself up on the edge of his bed and grinned with snaggleteeth. He was a huge, fierce-mustached man in a striped shirt, with ape-long hairy arms.
"Dueling."
"Dooling, huh? Mighta known. You froggies think you're being he-men, standing up and poking at each other this way and that way." He made ladylike motions with his right fist."Bucko, if you're going to get kilt, why not get kilt taking a treasure ship or something worth while?
"Oh, a life on the ocean wave,
A home on the briny—"
"SHUT UP!" A simultaneous yell arose from adjoining cells and nearby wardens, and cut off the hairy one's bellow.
"That's appreciation for you," grinned the pirate, stretching out on his bunk again."My only regret is that I'll be hung before I had a chance at the obscenity Shamir."
"How would you go about that?" asked Nash eagerly.
"Oho, so lace panties thinks he'd like a crack at the loot too? Better leave that to jolly mariners like us, lad.
"Fifteen men on a dead man's chest, yo-ho—"
"SHUT UP!"
"I might," said Nash reservedly."Got any ideas?"
"It would be a joke on the obscenity cops at that, wouldn't it? My ghost'd laugh to split its liver."
"If it has one."
"Haw, haw! Well, stand by, my bully; the first thing you need is a good magician. That's what we were after when they caught us. Obscenity the whole lot of 'em for using steam and repeating rifles against sail and muzzle-loaders; even so we'd have gotten out of the harbor safe if it hadn't been—"
"Yes, yes, but what about the magician?"
"Our own man, Aeolus Jackson, referred us to one of the local wizards here in New York, since Aeolus specializes in wind-control and didn't think he was up to cracking Tukiphat's crystal ball. So-o-o, we ran in at night, and looked up this wight, one Empedocles MacDonald; but he wouldn't help us—no, sir! Before he'd set up his obscenity island, Tuky had made the rounds of the Manhattan wizards and put the fear of God into them. He made 'em all go through some hocus-pocus that put them in his power, in case one of them should get grand ideas.
"But Tuky hadn't thought to give the same rope's end to the out-of-town magi, and Empedocles MacDonald gave us the names of a few of these. So we schooned back to our saucy ship and were just breaking out skys'ls when the harbor patrol put a light on us, and then the ball began.
"As I went down to the rolling sea, I saw three witches watching me—"
"SHUT UP!"
Nash persisted: "Who were these out-of-town magicians?"
"Lord love you, lad, how should I know? We had 'em wrote down, but the paper got lost in the garboil. Let me think—it seemeth there was a Jerome Cardan Dahlberg of Poughkeepsie, and a Merlin Apollonius Stark of Staten Island, and an Aleister Klingsor van Buren of Yonkers—"
"Wait a minute! Did you say Merlin Apollonius Stark?"
"Aye; of Staten Island, too, though I cannot give you the exact addresses, which were on the obscenity paper. Why, do you know this Stark knave?"
"Yes... uh... in a kind of way." Ten to one Merlin Apollonius Stark was the astral body of Montague Allen Stark.
"Why, then your problem's solved! Set your helm for this magus and persuade, bribe, or threaten him into telling you how to overcome Tukiphat's barrier."
"How about the forces of law and order?"
"They won't stop you, having no love for Tuky since he put up his island in their pond without a by-your-leave. Though if they board you after you've taken the bauble they may find some obscenity law to confiscate it. Of course," the pirate added, "I won't warrant what Tuky himself will do. Empedocles MacDonald seemed fearful afraid of him."
"Then why did they nab you?"
The pirate grinned ferociously."That was for something else. Were we out on the main I'd tell you a tale of gore and perfidy as should make you blanch. But first I must see how I do with Justinian Marshal O'Hara tomorrow. Of all the judges in New York I had to come before him, and he's sworn to try, condemn, and hang me within the hour, so they say."
But the pirate's irrepressible garrulity kept his tongue going all afternoon and evening. He gave Nash plenty of tales of gore and perfidy, merely declining to name himself as a participant, introducing his yarns with: "I once heard a tale—" or "They tell me that when the bark Antigonus was becalmed off Montauk—"
When their supper plates were being removed, a warden sauntered by."De Nêche!"
"Yes, m'sieur?"
"Thought you'd like to know. Judge O'Hara's going to give you your preliminary hearing first thing tomorrow. Seems you've got a friend among the higher-ups."
"Who?"
"A propagandist. Eleanor Thompson Berry. You Frenchies sure got what it takes with the femmes. Mm-mm." The guard rolled a wicked eye and departed.
That started the pirate off again; he asked Nash for amatory details, and when Nash evaded he went off into a full account of his own love life. Nash felt he had a good grounding in the science of comparative anatomy when the buccaneer announced that he intended to make his last night's sleep a good one and fell silent.
Nash awakened later, half-consciously uneasy. The prison was quiet except for the footfalls of guards, and there was a suggestion of pre-dawn grayness.
Then he became aware of a huge apish figure bending over him. Even as he tensed the muscles of his neck to raise his head, great horny hands clamped his throat; thumbs dug agonizingly in. Nash, still half asleep, kicked, swung, and clawed, but the fingers dug deeper and he could not reach to the other end of those terrible arms.